Rise of ISIS (7 page)

Despite this history of conflict, Fatah and Hamas in recent years have engaged in periodic efforts to form a unified Palestinian government. Their hope is that the political unity would benefit both parties and possibly result in the fringe benefit of having Egypt open its border for the passage of fuel and other necessities into Gaza.
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But these reconciliation efforts have had absolutely no effect on Hamas's conduct. In fact, since the latest round of “unity” talks and unity agreements, Hamas has stepped up attacks against Israel, ultimately triggering another major confrontation.

S
ince Hamas was established in December 1987, it has opposed any political compromise with Israel and has continued to attack Israel with suicide bombings and rockets. In fact, there has not been a year since its founding that Hamas has been at peace with Israel, or even contemplated peace. Hamas typically attacks Israel through its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassem Brigades. Their attacks against Israelis in Gaza continued steadily until 2005. That is when Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip as part of an effort to create a “two-state” solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the absence of a permanent peace agreement.
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In fact, there has not been a year since its founding that Hamas has been at peace with Israel, or even contemplated peace.

After Hamas took over Gaza in 2006, the Brigades “transformed from an underground guerrilla organization into a
uniformed military force designed to protect Gaza from outside attack.”
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In 2009, the International Crisis Group
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estimated the Brigades had between 7,000 and 10,000 full-time members, with more than 20,000 members in reserve.
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However, rather than protect Gaza from outside attack, Hamas's main military tactic since taking over Gaza “has been an increased firing of rockets and mortars from the territory” into Israel.
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These rocket attacks have frequently landed in Israel's border towns, resulting in occasional deaths and less serious injuries. In reality, if Hamas were not attacking Israel, Gaza would not be suffering from “outside attack.” Israel only strikes Gaza in self-defense, when rockets are fired, and has often expressed that it has no territorial designs on Gaza. In fact, Israel has said it would actively work to build Gaza's infrastructure and economy if Hamas would repudiate violence.

Israel has said it would actively work to build Gaza's infrastructure and economy if Hamas would repudiate violence.

Hamas refuses.

It is estimated that Hamas killed more than four hundred Israelis between 1993 and 2010.
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Although such attacks have been separated by periods of temporary calm, Palestinian terrorist groups have persisted in launching rockets into Israel, often in spite of cease-fire agreements.
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Israel has recognized that groups other than Hamas have participated in the attacks, but Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that,
because Hamas exercises full control of Gaza, “Israel holds Hamas responsible for all the attacks launched on [Israel].”
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The worst of Hamas's attacks include the following:
⁹

• Rocket barrages: The IDF claims that terrorists in the Gaza Strip (including, but not limited to, Hamas) have fired more than “8,000 rockets into Israel, killing 44 Israelis and injuring more than 1,600” from 2005 to 2011.”
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• Suicide bombings: During a nine-day span in February and March 1996, Hamas carried out four separate suicide bombings that killed 61 Israeli citizens and injured 234 others.
¹¹

• Mass-casualty suicide attacks: One of the deadliest attacks was on March 27, 2002, when a suicide bomber entered the dining room of the Park Hotel in Natanya, Israel, and detonated his explosives amid 227 guests who were eating their Seder meal. The Passover attack killed 30 Israelis and left 143 wounded.
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• Coordinated suicide attacks: In 2003, Hamas suicide bombers attacked three separate buses, killing 56 and wounding more than 240, many of them students and children.
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Yet despite its unquestioned terrorist identity, Hamas seeks and often obtains recognition and funding from the Western powers.

No reasonable person can conclude that Hamas is anything but a vicious terrorist organization, restrained from mass murder only by the power of the Israel Defense Forces. Yet despite its unquestioned terrorist identity, Hamas seeks and often obtains recognition and funding from the Western powers.

I
n June 2014, Hamas and Fatah announced they were forming a unity government.
¹
This means the secular Fatah was joining with the jihadist Hamas to attempt to govern the Palestinian territories together, under the banner of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The Obama administration, within days of this announcement, pledged that the United States would continue to provide hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars in aid to this new terrorist government.
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The administration is pledging this aid despite the fact that U.S. criminal law clearly prohibits any material support for designated terrorist organizations like Hamas.
³

Currently, the operating relationship of this new unity government is unclear. The Palestinian Authority is a larger entity with a primary role in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, while
Fatah is a more moderate political organization and Hamas is a terrorist gang.
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To draw a crude and imperfect analogy with the United States, our nation is governed by a federal government, which is—depending on the year—controlled by either the Democrats or Republicans (and sometimes control is divided). The Palestinian Authority, by contrast, has long been controlled by Fatah, with Hamas largely excluded from the PA. With the creation of the unity government, however, Hamas may now have a say in PA governance not unlike that of an American political party in governing the United States. It is not yet known what duties are delegated to which organization, how future endeavors will be orchestrated, or how the Palestinian people can trust that their goals will be pursued effectively.

What is clear, however, is this new unity agreement has not moderated Hamas, which followed the announcement of the unity government by dramatically escalating its terrorist attacks against Israel.

Hamas orchestrated the kidnapping and brutal execution of three teenagers in June 2014.
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These teenagers were shot ten times with a silenced gun.
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As follows many terrorist atrocities, the kidnapping resulted in Palestinian celebrations at a university near Ramallah.
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Palestinians were seen giving away sweets and celebrating in the streets.
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Hamas did not disclaim responsibility. Far from it. The military branch of Hamas issued a statement that said “the occupier will never have security,” without mentioning the three kidnapped teens.
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Hamas followed the kidnappings by stepping up its rocket launches into Israeli territory, firing them indiscriminately at Israeli civilians.
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Although the majority of these rock
ets have thankfully fallen on unoccupied ground or have been intercepted by the Israelis' Iron Dome antimissile system,
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they are nonetheless being fired at civilians in violation of the law of war.
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In response to these rockets, Israel acted in self-defense by conducting air strikes and raids with ground troops against Hamas and other terrorist operatives in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
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Israel simply cannot negotiate with Palestinian officials who refuse to acknowledge or accept Israel's right to exist, and who continue to support or mount attacks on Israel.

In the final analysis, until Hamas and its terrorist allies are defeated, there will be no peace with Israel. There will be continued terrorist attacks directed against Israeli civilians, attacks that violate the international law of war and constitute war crimes. The Palestinian people will be pawns in the hands of vicious terrorists and will continue to suffer the inevitable results that Hamas's terrorist attacks invite on their own neighborhoods and families.

In the final analysis, until Hamas and its terrorist allies are defeated, there will be no peace with Israel. There will be continued terrorist attacks directed against Israeli civilians, attacks that violate the international law of war and constitute war crimes. The Palestinian people will be pawns in the hands of vicious terrorists and will continue to suffer the inevitable results that Hamas's terrorist attacks invite on their own neighborhoods and families.

The only thing that separates the Jews of Israel from the
fate of the Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities in Iraq and Syria is the might of the Israel Defense Forces. Faced with murderous terrorists, Israelis are able to respond with F-16s, Merkava tanks, and one of the best-trained armies in the world. In Iraq, by contrast, Christians are defenseless, Yazidis are helpless, and even America's Muslim allies, the Kurds, are outgunned by their barbaric ISIS enemies. Tragically, our friends in Iraq are defenseless because America chose to abandon them. American air strikes designed to avert world-historic massacres may be too little and too late to preserve any semblance of Christian life in Iraq.

If self-defense is all that separates Israel from defeat and genocide—if self-defense is all that prevents jihadists from killing American allies and striking America again and again—then the U.N. and our Western allies should support the rights of Israel and America.

But they often do not. Western European governments, in cooperation with the U.N. and the international left, systematically seek to prevent Israel from defending itself, and use legal arguments that would also apply to American soldiers.

And this brings us to the next troubling phase of our battle against jihad, our battle to save Israel, America, and Christians in the Middle East from destruction and death—the legal battle to preserve America's and Israel's right to protect themselves.

The battle against “lawfare.”

T
he mission of AQI (the forerunner of ISIS) was to kill anyone it could. In my coauthor's area of operations, the terrorist group was in the habit of launching mortar shells in the general vicinity of American soldiers, but instead of hitting our bases, the shells kept hitting in and around local villages. Our soldiers had been hunting for the mortar crew for days, but without success. The mortar was kept in the back of a pickup truck. The terrorists would race out to a firing point, fire two or three deadly shells, then race back under cover before anyone could see them.

While their fire had not yet claimed any American lives, the Iraqi civilians were not so lucky. AQI fired at American bases, around American bases, and sometimes directly into Iraqi villages, even when no Americans were within miles.

Finally, on one very hot afternoon in July, our soldiers got lucky. Very lucky. The terrorists had pressed their luck in daylight, rushing out to a firing point next to a small stand of trees
in the bleak Diyala countryside. They did not see or hear the American Apache helicopter hovering two miles away.

When AQI fired, the Apache crew saw the puff of smoke from the mortar, then the impact near an Iraqi village, and immediately swung to attack. As the helicopter approached, ready to fire its cannon and destroy the mortar truck, the terrorists heard the “thump” of the rotors, jumped out of the truck, and ran away.

There were four men.

Three went one way, one went the other. The Apache directed nearby American ground troops to intercept the group of three while it tracked the lone runner with its gun camera. He was running straight into a village, ducking under the shade of houses, sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him.

But he was running out of room. In mere moments he would run out of the village and into the open desert, where the Apache would get a clear shot.

At the last possible moment, just before the Apache pulled the trigger to end the terrorist's life, he did what so many of them did.

He grabbed a human shield.

He scooped up a small child, cupping a young boy in his left arm like a football, and kept running.

Could the American crew fire? If they did and the child was hurt, who would be legally responsible for the child's death?

Under the law of war, there was no doubt the terrorist was a war criminal. He violated multiple provisions of the law of war. His indiscriminate mortar fire was only occasionally aimed at
military targets, so he violated the rule of
necessity
. His attacks were not necessary to accomplish legitimate military objectives.

By dressing like a civilian and firing at civilian and military targets alike, he was doubly guilty of violating the rule of
distinction
. He did not distinguish between military and civilian targets, and through his civilian clothes he tried to blend in with civilians as much as possible, increasing the risk that American return fire would inadvertently hurt the innocent.

Then, by scooping up the child, he not only engaged in hostage taking, but immediately mistreated his captive by intentionally placing that child in mortal danger.

Moreover, as a war criminal, he was legally responsible for all the harm that resulted from his crimes, not only the deaths that may have resulted from his mortar attacks, but the deaths that resulted when American forces used their right of self-defense. In other words, if American forces fired and the child died, the terrorist would be legally responsible for the child's death.